Living the Live in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta

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Death

Somehow we are always trying to establish a continuum in our Life. The things we like we invite to stay with us forever and at the same time we immediately want to get rid of the shadow parts. We always look for the unchangeable in the changeable. But now what when we are seriously looking for an answer on: Who am I? Of course, even in our meditations we act the same as we always do: we position our-self as the unchangeable, watching the changeable. This way we still act like we are used to.

Look at a baby that is helplessly waiting for care. Without any assistance the newborn will die pretty soon. From our first moments in this world we need care, on all levels of existence. For a grown up it is rather simple. You are hungry and you find a way to buy some food and you will eat it soon after. Now look at the difference between you as a baby and as a grown up.

During the years you have learned to talk, to walk, to plan, to work, to cook, even to digest properly. You have learned countless methods to build yourself a working physical state with on top of the cake a partner to love, a comfortable home, proper education, a job , money, healthcare, a pension-plan. You easily can fill up this list with many other desires. Picture yourself as the little baby and now. Over the years you have build up a full body-worldsystem of identification, all set up in a perfect functioning dream of space and time.

For a baby there is no world. Even objects appear to be blurry colour-patterns. It is not made to survive on itself. But from day one the body will learn itself to survive. Identifications will grow, building up safety, each at a time. Noticeably the Idea of a separate existing body in a world of objects will appear to be. And this is how it should function otherwise the body, THE IDEA, would die. The body is there and has learned to live and survive. It is perfectly fit for it.

For a body the natural knowledge and learning-curve how to survive has to be born out of something deeper. And that is the Idea of separation, and therefore the urge to protect itself. How come? Well, in essence the birth of the body is THE EXPRESSION of separation itself already. This whole physical state IS build on fear of death and is urging itself to overcome death, because IT undoubtedly KNOWS there is just LIFE, as in CONSCIOUSNESS itself! Why would your heart beat, why would your longs function, why are your organs and blood doing its job. Yes, they all work together to survive death!

The physical world is build upon THE IDEA of mortality. Everything has been created to live a long and happy life with the avoidance of pain and sorrow leading to sickness and death. Deep down we know all this. Birth and death are part of the same IDEA. We even create the idea of an eternal soul, a heaven or a someone who can reach enlightenment, or we like to live the buddha as the unchangeable watcher on the hill. Even then, we want to survive.

And it is all so very natural….

When you sit on your couch and you start to meditate like the best you can there is one thing left to understand. You are THIS, the IDEA that created the unchangeable in the changeable. This has to be seen, This has to be understood. Probably now you think. ah.. I know what he means: I am both, I am all there is, I am beyond the world of objects and therefore beyond the changeable in the unchangeable. This is the tricky mind, because now you have to take the next step. A step into the abyss. And like a teenage girl who wants to experience her first love, you first will know when you have taken the invitation to jump into the ocean.